An energy-efficient smart comfort sensing system based on the IEEE 1451 standard for green buildings

In building automation, comfort is an important aspect, and the real-time measurement of comfort is notoriously complicated. In this paper, we have developed a wireless, smart comfort sensing system. The important parameters in designing the prevalent measurement of comfort systems, such as portability, power consumption, reliability, and system cost, were considered. To achieve the target design goals, the communication module, sensor node, and sink node were developed based on the IEEE1451 standard. Electrochemical and semiconductor sensors were considered for the development of the sensor array, and the results of both technologies were compared. The sensor and sink nodes were implemented using the ATMega88 microcontroller. Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 preview was used to create the graphical user interface in C#. The sensors were calibrated after the signal processing circuit to ensure that the standard accuracy of the sensor was achieved. This paper presents detailed design solutions to problems that existed in the literature.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=7361hj201

Introduction to industrial control networks

An industrial control network is a system of interconnected equipment used to monitor and control physical equipment in industrial environments. These networks differ quite significantly from traditional enterprise networks due to the specific requirements of their operation. Despite the functional differences between industrial and enterprise networks, a growing integration between the two has been observed. The technology in use in industrial networks is also beginning to display a greater reliance on Ethernet and web standards, especially at higher levels of the network architecture. This has resulted in a situation where engineers involved in the design and maintenance of control networks must be familiar with both traditional enterprise concerns, such as network security, as well as traditional industrial concerns such as determinism and response time. This paper highlights some of the differences between enterprise and industrial networks, presents a brief history of industrial networking, gives a high level explanation of some operations specific to industrial networks, provides an overview of the popular protocols in use and describes current research topics. The purpose of this paper is to serve as an introduction to industrial control networks, aimed specifically at those who have had minimal exposure to the field, but have some familiarity with conventional computer networks.http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=9739hb2016Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineerin

Special section on industrial wireless sensor networks

No abstract availablehttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=9424hb201

Intelligent Computing for the Management of Changes in Industrial Engineering Modeling Processes

Advancements in engineering modeling have changed the work of engineers during the last two decades. Sophisticated descriptions store information about shape oriented engineering objects and their relationships. Boundary representations of form features constitute shape models. Rules and checks have replaced simple data form of shape model entity attributes. This change of modeling facilitates a next step towards application of computer intelligence at engineering object related decisions. The authors propose a method of intelligent attribute definition for integrated decision assistance environments of modelling systems. This method provides quick and comprehensive assessment of situations for decisions on modification of modeled objects in very complex information environments. The paper starts with an outline of the approach to intelligent decision assistance by the authors. Next, an Internet portal communicated scenario of the proposed modeling is discussed. Following this, multilevel solution for modeling, adding characteristics for engineering objects, and definitions and communications are detailed as essential methods in the proposed modeling. Finally, behaviors for essential classes of modeled objects and an example for the definition of situations and behaviors represent implementation issues

Deformable Object Tracking with Gated Fusion

The tracking-by-detection framework receives growing attentions through the integration with the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Existing tracking-by-detection based methods, however, fail to track objects with severe appearance variations. This is because the traditional convolutional operation is performed on fixed grids, and thus may not be able to find the correct response while the object is changing pose or under varying environmental conditions. In this paper, we propose a deformable convolution layer to enrich the target appearance representations in the tracking-by-detection framework. We aim to capture the target appearance variations via deformable convolution, which adaptively enhances its original features. In addition, we also propose a gated fusion scheme to control how the variations captured by the deformable convolution affect the original appearance. The enriched feature representation through deformable convolution facilitates the discrimination of the CNN classifier on the target object and background. Extensive experiments on the standard benchmarks show that the proposed tracker performs favorably against state-of-the-art methods

A survey of cognitive radio handoff schemes, challenges and issues for industrial wireless sensor networks (CR-IWSN)

Industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN) applications are mostly time-bound, mission-critical and highly delay sensitive applications therefore IWSN defines strict, stringent and unique QoS requirements such as timeliness, reliability and availability. In IWSN, unlike other sensor networks, late arrival of packets or delay or disruption to an on-going communication are considered as critical failure. Also, because IWSN is deployed in the overcrowded industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band it is difficult to meet this unique QoS requirements due to stiff competition for bandwidth from other technologies operating in ISM band resulting in scarcity of spectrum for reliable communication and/or disruption of ongoing communication. However, cognitive radio (CR) provides more spectral opportunities through opportunistic-use of unused licensed spectrum while ensuring minimal interference to licensed users. Similarly, spectrum handoff, which is a new type of handoff in cognitive radio, has the potential to offer increase bandwidth, reliable, smooth and interference-free communication for IWSNs through opportunistic-use of spectrum, minimal switching-delays, and efficient target channel selection strategies as well as effective link recovery maintenance. As a result, a new paradigm known as cognitive radio industrial wireless sensor network (CR-IWSN) has become the interest of recent research efforts. In this paper, we highlight and discuss important QoS requirements of IWSN as well as efforts of existing IWSN standards to address the challenges. We discuss the potential and how cognitive radio and spectrum handoff can be useful in the attempt to provide real-time reliable and smooth communication for IWSNs.The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa [ICT: Meraka].http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jnca2018-11-01hj2017Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineerin

Actor coordination using info-gap decision theory in wireless sensor and actor networks

Mobile, unmanned, power and resource-rich devices, called actors, deployed within a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) application area, enable faster response times to events. Due to cost constraints, only a few actors can be placed within a WSN application area. Determining which actor or set of actors should respond to an event is important, because the correct decision will increase the event response time, and reduce energy expenditure. Since the mobile actors are widely dispersed over the application area, the actors' accurate location and energy details will not always be available. In this paper, we show that using info-gap decision theory to choose the correct actors to respond to an event when uncertainty about an actor's location and/or energy exists, ensures that the actors chosen can adequately respond to the event. The robustness of the decision choice of the set of actor(s) assigned to respond to an event means that all chosen actor(s) have sufficient energy to respond to the event in real-time.http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalCODE=ijsnetai201